


Nice Work If You Can Get It

by Fabular_Mr_Fox



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Coffee, Curtain Fic, Domestic Fluff, Military, Multi, Polyamory, Suburban AU, Threesome - F/M/M, U.S. Military au, but i love a man in uniform, i know fuck all about the air force, or the army, or the housing market in chicago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabular_Mr_Fox/pseuds/Fabular_Mr_Fox
Summary: I wrote this for a holiday exchange for someone who wanted Poe/Finn/Rey. And for some reason I set it not in space, but in Chicago.Poe was in the Air Force. Now he's a commercial pilot living the domestic poly dream. How'd he get there? Well, have a seat and let me tell you...





	Nice Work If You Can Get It

**Author's Note:**

> NB: seeing as I got this harebrained scheme like three days before this thing was due for said holiday exchange, I didn't have a lot of research time. All errors about the armed forces are my own, or maybe Wikipedia's.

Mornings in the Dameron household were one long fight about who would make the coffee. Though, given the coffee hadn’t been made yet, the fight was a sleepy one consisting of pouts, whimpers, and poorly-formed words.

Finn usually avoided the task by promising to cook breakfast if somebody else dealt with the Chemex. Rey had perfected a lower-lip quiver that melted Poe’s already sloppy heart. So it was nearly always him who ended up yawning over the scale and the beans and the kettle, listening to NPR and the hiss of the shower upstairs, wondering how he got so hideously lucky.

Ten years ago, he couldn’t have imagined it. In uniform and in the closet, he’d spent most days wondering why the hell he ever signed up for ROTC.

The United States Armed Forces had always been a familial point of honor. Poe had grown up on bases. He knew how to answer to men and women in uniform. It was a way of life. He wasn’t proud of it necessarily, but he took it for granted. Mom was Air Force, so he thought of the Air Force like mom: Sometimes it pissed him off, but it was family.

If he’d imagined anything like Iraq, he would never have signed up. 

He liked flying though. Really loved it. Mom had been a tough piece of leather; her copilots said the only time she smiled was in the cockpit. Poe smiled a lot more, but he smiled biggest when he strapped on his mask.

Until he met Finn.

He’d been on leave, back in 2008, close to the end of his service term but not close enough. The country had been in the frantic door-knocking stage of the election, and early one evening he found himself being canvassed by a cute guy in a hoodie who was refreshingly irreverent about the whole process.

“They’re both fuck-ups,” he said. “They’re politicians. I mean, if I had to choose between the two, Barack, no doubt. But if we really want change, we gotta dismantle the military industrial complex. Am I right?”

It made Poe laugh, which he hadn’t done in a while. “Watch it,” he said, and unzipped his hoodie to show the wings on his t-shirt. 

“Oh shit,” said the canvasser, and snapped a salute. He meant it as a joke, but you didn’t lose the muscle memory: the guy’s hand came up crisply, cocked at an exact angle.

“You too, huh?” Poe crossed his arms. “And you want to dismantle what now?”

That cute face had shut up like a hangar door. And Poe found himself apologizing, inviting the guy in for a beer. And then another. They went through the rest of the six pack in Poe’s fridge as Finn told him about a recruiter who’d come to his high school, gotten him right when he turned 18, made the Army look like a way out of North Philly. Told a lot of half-truths, got a lot of kids to sign papers they didn’t understand.

“I don’t exactly wish I’d stayed,” said Finn, once they’d moved down to the dive bar on the corner. “At home, I mean. But there had to be a better way to get out than that. And you know, they do that shit all the time. Make it look like enlisting is your only chance. It’s not; there’s tons of shit out there. I know that now. But you think my guidance counselor had time to tell some average-to-crappy student about scholarships and college applications?”

“So what, you didn’t re-enlist?”

“You think I spent six years saying ‘yes, sir?’” Finn laughed, then said, “Misconduct discharge,” in a mischievous tone of voice that left little doubt as to the misconduct. And even though Poe’s loyalty to the U.S. Military was at low ebb, he still cringed.

“Uh-oh,” said Finn, the laughter leaving his face. “I feel like I just lost my chance with you. If I had one.”

Without thinking Poe said, “You did.”

"Lose it?"

"Shit," said Poe. "No. No, listen I...hang on." He finished his beer, put down ten bucks to pay, and said, “Come back to my place?”

Finn smiled and it was like breaking through thick clouds into the sun, and Poe loved the Army and the Air Force, Chicago, dive bars, and even the election for bringing this boy into his life.

It still took him three more years of slogging to reach the end of his service commitment. He kept in touch with Finn during his final tour of duty--just his friend in Chicago, he said, whenever they Skyped. As he got closer and closer to coming home, they talked more and more often, sending long emails: which pizza places Poe missed the most, which movies Finn wanted him to see. Where Poe wanted to live when he came back. Which neighborhoods in Chicago had the best places, the cheapest, the nicest buildings, the good late night Chinese. They never said anything like “dating,” or “moving in,” or “boyfriend.” 

Then it was the end of 2010 and suddenly saying “boyfriend” wouldn’t get you discharged. Or, there was a promise that it wouldn’t someday soon. He could come out, and still stay in the sky. With one year left, he started to wonder if he wanted to. Mom had died a few years back; did the Air Force still feel like family?

Back on earth, in the present, in the kitchen of a Victorian house just far enough outside of Oak Park to be affordable, the object of Poe’s introspection came clumping down the stairs, freshly showered with a green flannel robe tied around his waist. Finn twirled the dial on the ugly 80s radio that lived underneath the spice rack. There was a brief crackle of static, swiftly yielding to...something classical. Poe couldn’t have said who or what or when it had been written.

“No news before coffee,” said Finn.

“Water’s just boiling.” Poe took the kettle off its base and began to pour across the fragrant, freshly-ground beans. “Where’s Rey-bey?”

“Still wrapped up.” Finn kissed the back of Poe’s neck, leaving traces of damp as water dripped from his hair. “I don’t think she teaches until ten today. Oh, also, the hot water heater’s messed up again. I nearly got steamed.”

“Fuckin’ old house,” said Poe. 

“You love this fuckin’ old house.” Finn pinched his ass. “Gimme some coffee.”

They were both halfway into their cups and their newsfeeds when Rey came down, hair askew and pillow lines still pressed into her face. She reached out blindly and made a small squeak, clutching at the empty air.

Poe laughed and snapped his teeth within an inch of her fingertips. She startled, eyes wide underneath tangled bangs. 

“Good morning, princess peeking-through-the-bush.”

“Poe,” she said, and pouted.

“All right, all right.” He got out of his chair, which she promptly stole.

“Mm,” she said, crossing her legs to sit pretzel-style on the seat. “Still warm.”

Rey drank her coffee with milk and sugar out of the same enormous blue mug every morning. All the mugs she had brought to their house from her crappy shared apartment were enormous. She had a Costco membership, too, and her eyes were always bigger than her stomach at buffets.

If he’d been a stranger watching this cute, slight woman put food away at the all-you-can-eat Indian place, or the double stack of pancakes at her favorite diner, he’d have wondered where she stuffed it all. But he’d seen her in the gym, in the ring, and going at the bag, and he knew exactly where it went. 

Poe set Rey’s coffee in front of her and looked pointedly at Finn. “My job’s done,” he said. “You’re up. I gotta get going soon, so nothing super fancy.”

“Raw egg on cold bread?” asked Finn. Poe slapped the back of his head, then took his chair when he got up to start cooking.

“Hey,” said Poe to Rey, as he settled beside her. She peeked up from her coffee. “Sleep okay?”

In answer, she yawned. 

“Somebody came in late last night,” said Finn, cracking eggs into butter. “I was up to pee and it must have been three o’clock.”

“Work party,” said Rey, rubbing her eyes. “Christmas. Free booze.”

“You teach today?” asked Poe. 

Rey nodded miserably. Finn pulled a coconut water out of the fridge and dropped it in front of her. Weakly, she stabbed at the foil with the collapsible straw and started sucking down electrolytes. They worked visibly as she drank, or maybe that was just placebo. Either way, the carton was gone in a minute and she turned back to her coffee. Finn swiped the empty and tossed it into the garbage can, then kissed the top of Rey’s bedhead and put a plate of eggs in front of her.

“Hey,” said Poe. “I’m the one who has to get on the road, here.”

“Hungover ladies first,” said Finn, and Rey smirked.

Poe had a sudden memory of the first time he had seen that smirk: in a selfie Finn sent from Chicago Pride in 2010. This is Rey from the center, said the email. That I keep telling you about. 

Finn worked for a queer youth community center in the city. When they partnered with a local gym to teach self defense, Rey volunteered for the weekly slot. Finn dropped in on her first class and got his ass kicked acting as her prop attacker. She offered to buy him a drink. He didn’t realize until later it was a date, at which point he sent Poe an embarrassed apology that avoided broaching the subject of whether they were actually together. Rey, it later transpired, had gotten a similar spiel, about Finn not being ready to date, that neatly sidestepped mentioning Poe, or boys, at all.

As she did many things, Rey took this in stride and made Finn her friend instead. Best friend. They hung out, all the time, and Finn did indeed bring her up in emails. So much that Poe started to see where it was going long before Finn did, and prepared to take a painful hit.

But that wasn’t how it turned out. No confession was forthcoming, no semi-breakup from this thing that wasn’t really a relationship. Instead, when Poe finally came home he ended up eating tacos and drinking skunked Corona across the table from a ponytailed pixie girl who had put away three helpings of guacamole before she started on her lengua. They swapped recipes--Poe told her how his dad had cooked tongue, boiled then fried, and she told him her guilty shame was any kind of casserole as long as it was made with Campbell’s soup--then workout tips. She got up right there in the restaurant to demonstrate a trap stretch, bent forward with her palms flat on the table, ass sticking into the aisle.

Finn watched them both like he’d put two cats in one room and was hoping they would get along. Or maybe more like he was matchmaking.

“God, I’m so glad you got along,” he said, when they had dropped Rey off outside her building.

“You like her,” said Poe, staring out the windshield. It didn’t help that he liked her too. A lot. Another time, another place, he’d have her number already. He’d be up in her apartment, where a light had just turned on.

“Sure I do,” said Finn. “She’s great. She--”

“No, I mean you like her. I didn’t know you liked girls.”

A taut pause made the air inside the car unbreathable. Finn’s fists tightened on the steering wheel; the plastic squeaked. “I didn’t either,” he said. “I--”

Poe cut him off. “It’s fine. I totally understand. I was gone forever, and we never actually--”

And then Finn was across the center console and kissing him, hard, and all the years in the desert and the sky fell away and it was that first night again, like there was no time and nothing in between them.

Later, at Finn’s apartment, squashed between a warm body and the wall, Poe said, “What are we, though. Is this...is it a thing? Do you want us to be a thing?”

Sleepily, Finn rolled over and said “yes” into the crook of Poe’s neck. He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. The spot still sometimes tingled, when Finn laughed, or the light caught him just right standing on the porch, or even when he was cursing mad about the hot water heater, or forgot to pay the cable bill, or drank milk from the carton.

Like he was doing now. “Gross,” said Poe. “Use a fucking glass.”

Rey held out her hand and Finn put the carton into it. She drank, then offered it to Poe. “I didn’t backwash.”

“I did,” said Finn.

“Fuck you. Who’s driving me to the airport?”

“Me,” said Rey. “I have a class at ten.”

“Like hell,” said Finn. “You’ll crash your hungover ass into a telephone pole. I’ll drive you both.”

“Let me get dressed,” said Poe.

“Eggs,” said Finn.

“Keep ‘em warm.” Poe tipped the last of his coffee down his neck and leaned forward to kiss Rey across the table. She hadn’t brushed her teeth. “You taste like death. And cheap booze.”

She stuck out her tongue. It was stained an awful color and he inferred too many jello shots. “Go get dressed. You’re hotter in uniform.”

He snapped a crisp salute, not dropping it until she raised her middle finger to her forehead. Then it was upstairs to his bedroom. They each kept one for personal space, though they played musical beds most nights. Benefit of a big fuckin’ old house. Benefit of a commercial pilot’s salary, plus two earning partners and no kids.

In the mirror over his bureau, he turned his collar up around his jaw and threaded a black tie from one side of his neck to the other. Over, under, up, and through--he liked a half windsor for its asymmetry. It reminded him he wasn’t wearing dress blues.

He loved Finn. But Rey was the one who’d brought him home for good.

Finn never would have had the courage to ask him; Rey did. Rey, who had been abandoned by her parents before her brain even mastered object permanence. She had no idea who they were. Names, yes, but when she’d looked them up they were both dead: one of an overdose, the other in a car crash not too long after. Rey who had been shuttled through shitty foster homes in rural Indiana, who had always been hungry and bullied in school for being a tomboy, a lesbo, a queer. Who went all in or didn’t go in at all, because she could take care of herself or she could give everything she had. Her heart, she told him, couldn’t handle anything in between.

Finn would never have asked him to leave the Air Force; Rey looked straight into his eyes and told him he would stay, or she would go. 

“I can’t really do casual flings,” she said. “And I don’t like long distance. I need you here” --she put a hand on his chest-- “where I can see you.”

He had kissed her for the first time on her fire escape, while Finn was getting another six pack from the fridge. They had already gone through several. He’d come back and looked at them and known exactly what they’d done. And he had turned around and walked back to the kitchen, still holding the beer. Poe swore, said sorry to Rey--still staring at him like he had grown a third eye--and jumped back through the window to chase after Finn.

They fought; it started quiet but didn’t stay that way. Soon Finn was shouting, “you knew, I told you,” and Poe was saying, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I don’t know why--” and Finn was saying “I only didn’t ask her because of you, because you wanted to be a thing.”

And that was when Rey appeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning on the frame, and asked, amazed, “are you fighting about me?”

They turned in unison, mouths hanging open, and she looked between them: once, twice. Then, without speaking, she stepped straight up to Finn and kissed him as suddenly as Poe had kissed her on the fire escape five minutes ago.

Watching the tilt of Rey’s chin, the flex of Finn’s hands at his sides, a gear in Poe’s brain clicked into place. For the last month he had watched Finn and Rey and thought every moment they were perfect for each other, even though he and Finn were a thing, were together, would never be apart.

At the same time he had watched Rey and Finn and felt hotly jealous of the way he made her laugh, the way she was so casually physical with him: an arm around his waist, her knuckles in his hair, a chaste kiss on the cheek when he did something sweet like fold her napkin into a crumpled rose. It took him too long to realize that he was not jealous of Finn’s love for her, but rather her love for Finn. By then it was too late and he had fallen hard.

Sometimes, if he was alone with Rey, or caught her eyes just right, something skipped between them like the spark from a Jacob’s ladder; it stung and made him gasp. Sometimes, he saw Finn watching him, inscrutable sadness in his eyes, and wondered if he knew.

This had all seemed insurmountable, impossible. And so it was simplest to stick to what they knew: Poe and Finn were dating. Rey was their friend, and they both loved her too much to talk about it.

Until Poe kissed Rey, and Rey kissed Finn, and Poe got his stupid ass across the kitchen and put one hand on the familiar curve of Finn’s hip and the other on the new, firm muscle of Rey’s. They broke apart and looked at him and he said, “I’m a fucking idiot, I’m so sorry,” and caught Finn’s full lower lip between his teeth, tasting Rey.

She moved to pull away. He pressed his hand into the curve of her back; not hard enough to keep her if she was uncomfortable, but firmly enough to tell her yes, and invite her close. He heard her breathe in, sharply, felt her muscles flex beneath his palm as she shifted her weight and paused.

Then he felt her mouth against his neck, her hand on his ass, and she was laughing as she kissed him, and he was laughing, but sort of crying too, and Finn was only crying: the gasping sobs of relief that come with good news and the end of fear. Then Poe’s thick, stupid fingers were scrabbling at Finn’s fly and Rey was pulling at the hem of Poe’s t-shirt and Finn was pulling off her shorts and they fucked on the kitchen floor while the beer got warm on the counter.

They weren’t good at it, the first time. They had gotten much better since. 

The memory made Poe’s necktie feel too tight. He was half hard under his slacks, and resented Friday strongly for not actually being the weekend.

“Poe!” Finn was shouting up the stairs. “Eggs. Car. Plane. Five minutes and we’re leaving.”

“Coming,” said Poe, and smoothed the wings of his collar down. Double breasted jacket with its golden cuffs. Shoe horn for the black cap-toes, aviators from the dish on the bureau. Tie clip. Overnight bag, in case of weather delays. 

And last, his peaked cap from the bedpost, where he had left it two nights before. It had been the last bit of his uniform to go.

When he came down to the kitchen, he could tell from Rey’s face she was thinking about the same thing, so he tipped his cap and sent her a smarmy air kiss, fifties greaser-style. She rolled her eyes, but a flush rose on her cheeks.

Finn handed him a fried egg sandwich wrapped in a paper towel. “You were too slow. I had your scrambled ones.”

“Eat in the car,” said Rey, shedding her blanket and reaching for her gym bag. “Traffic’s gonna be hell around the airport.”

“PJs,” said Poe.

“I’ll dress when I get to work.”

“Out,” said Finn and pointed a spatula at the door. “Start the car and scrape it off.”

With Rey in pajamas, the scraping fell to Poe. He took a swath off the windshield and saw Rey’s nose pressed against the glass, her eyes crossed and Jello-dyed tongue sticking out. A few minutes later, hastily-dressed Finn came out and plunked into the driver’s seat beneath the frost, which had begun to melt under the onslaught of warm exhaust and the Original Swedish Ice Scraper. And even though Poe’s ears hurt and his hands were numb, he found that, like making coffee, he didn’t mind the work.


End file.
